xes covered with a rug;
and slept soundly till morning light appeared. Then the sun, which at
its setting had smiled on two thousand men and their blanket shelters,
at its rising looked in vain for men or blankets; all were gone, save
a few Grenadiers left for outpost duty. I had come from Bloemfontein
for nought. Just behind my shelter stood the pile of firewood neatly
heaped in readiness for the previous night's camp fire, but never
lighted; and close beside my shelter was spread on the ground fresh
beef and mutton, enough to feed fifteen hundred men; but those fifteen
hundred were now far away, nobody knew where; and of that fresh meat
the main part was destined to speedy burial. Truly enough that Sunday
was indeed "All Fools' Day"; though the fooling was on our part of a
quite involuntary order!

Yet in face of oft recurring disappointment and disaster the favourite
motto of the Orange Free State amply justified itself, and will do to
the end. It says _Alles zal recht komen_; which means, being
interpreted, "All will come right." While God remains upon the throne
that needs must be!

[Sidenote: _Eastertide in Bloemfontein._]

_Good Friday_ for many of us largely justified its name. It was a
graciously good day. My first parade in a S.C.A. marquee was not only
well attended but was also marked by much of hallowed influence. Then
followed a second parade service in the Wesleyan church which was
still more largely attended; and attended by men many of whose faces
were delightfully familiar. It was an Aldershot parade service held in
the heart of South Africa, and in what is supposed to be the hostile
capital of a hostile state.

In the course of the afternoon over five hundred paid a visit to our
temporary Soldiers' Home for letter writing and the purchase of such
light refreshments as we found it possible to provide in that famine
haunted city. The evening we gave up to Christian song in that same
Soldiers' Home; and when listening to so many familiar voices singing
the old familiar hymns, some of us seemed for the moment almost to
forget we were not in the hallowed "Glory Room" of the Aldershot Home.

On _Easter Sunday_ at the two parade services in the Town Church the
most notable thing was the visible eagerness with which men listened
to the old, old story of Eastertide, and the overwhelming heartiness
with which they sang our triumphant Easter hymns. There is a capital
Wesleyan choir in Bloemfontein; but the